During my long career in medicine, I would make a point of visiting  hospital laboratories, especially in children's hospitals, whenever I visited a country or a city that boasted of  a paediatric  hospital. And generally I returned to Vancouver with a renewed pride in the quality of care we provided in the laboratories of our own Children's and Women's Hospital here in BC.

Now that my second career centres on theatre, food and travel writing, I likewise take every opportunity I can to see theatre, and wine and dine in great restaurants wherever I travel. Each time I return to Vancouver whether I have experienced superb meals in London, Capetown, the Languedoc or on my recent trip to Chicago,  I realize anew how lucky we are to have the fresh food bounty from earth and sea, that we have here in British Columbia.

Prompted by an absolutely outstanding dining experience with the Chef's Table selection at Goldfish Pacifc Kitchen last night,  and looking back on the variety of restaurants I have reviewed  since I began posting my reviews to Supping in Vancouver, I realized that I need to develop some sort of a rating scale to distinguish an outstanding dining experience from an excellent or a merely really good meal.

I think that I favour the "uhuhuh- jigglejigglejiggle reponse" that I first wrote about  some time ago  (see Boneta  and Blue Water Cafe among others).

I quote "When I really really really enjoy the first taste of  a dish, I sometimes spontaneously break into an odd little shoulder-jiggling dance accompanied by sounds of appreciation that I don't quite know how to spell. Sort of like - uhuhuhuh! Jiggle,jiggle, jiggle - uhuhuhuh. When I realized some time ago that I have this tendency I worked hard to control it - It's not very dignified to be making incoherent sounds of bliss when you are trying to be objective in your approach to evaluating your meal. Still every now and then I forget - the food is great- and the jiggle appears".

As I work out the details of how to go from "uhuh-jigglejiggle" to a rating scale, you can check out my reviews of other Vancouver restaurants by navigating to the Sipping and Supping page and selecting either Vancouver restaurants in Supping in Vancouver, or restaurants outside Vancouver in the  Supping Away  section. If you are looking for a specific restaurant try the search button on the archive page.  If you have your own comments on any of these places, send them to me through the comment section following each post. Or if you have your own review, you could post it in my guest review section by sending it to me at gillian@reviewfromthehouse.com